The Character Flaws Behind Donald Trump's Terrifying Flirtation With Violence

John McQuaid
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Many of us assumed there was a method to Donald Trump’s madness: that underneath it all, it was a put-on, reflecting an underlying strategy. Like a reality TV show, scripted and tailored to maximize tawdry drama and ratings. He hinted at this himself many times. He made snarky comments about his followers. He even noted that there were “two Trumps,” the candidate bully-boy and the real guy. And so, as the campaign progressed from the partisan scrum to the general election, the more reasonable real guy would emerge to reassure the broader public, even as he continued to beat up on his opponent. The best evidence for this set of assumptions was success: bully-boy Trump was all about “winning,” and sure enough, against all predictions (including mine) he started winning. A lot.

Donald Trump speaks at a rally on March 13 in Boca Raton, Florida.Primary voters head to the polls on March 15th in Florida. (Rhona Wise/AFP/Getty Images)

But it’s clear now that Trump isn’t just about Trump winning, or disrupting the scriptedness that defines modern campaigns, or skillfully manipulating the passions of angry masses of white people. Gauging the true beliefs of someone who lies constantly is difficult. Demagogues ride waves of popular sentiment, and their own beliefs are, perhaps, always going to be secondary to their cynicism. But some terrible, disqualifying flaws are now there for all to see.

We know Trump is moved by a sense of personal grievance. Where this comes from, deep down, in a person born to such privilege, who knows? But one example is a desire to be taken seriously in politics – and seriously in general. You can see that in this New York Times piece, which paints the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner as a turning point. There, President Obama famously mocked Trump, and Trump had to sit there and take it:

Mr. Trump at first offered a drawn smile, then a game wave of the hand. But as the president’s mocking of him continued and people at other tables craned their necks to gauge his reaction, Mr. Trump hunched forward with a frozen grimace.

After the dinner ended, Mr. Trump quickly left, appearing bruised. He was “incredibly gracious and engaged on the way in,” recalled Marcus Brauchli, then the executive editor of The Washington Post, but departed “with maximum efficiency.”

That evening of public abasement, rather than sending Mr. Trump away, accelerated his ferocious efforts to gain stature within the political world. And it captured the degree to which Mr. Trump’s campaign is driven by a deep yearning sometimes obscured by his bluster and bragging: a desire to be taken seriously.

So, Trump is aggrieved, petty, immature. That’s not news, really. Many politicians have these traits. Successful ones subordinate them to practical concerns, or hire people who temper them, in order to work within the system. Not Trump. There is apparently no limit to how much he indulges these impulses, up to and including encouraging violence.

As Jonathan Chait notes, Trump has been praising dictators and “strength” at least since making admiring comments about the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1990. Lately, Putin’s been getting some Trump love. Usually in American politics “strength” means different things in different contexts. When talking about foreign policy, candidates rattle sabers all they want. But more generally “strength” is displayed via political combat, never violence. Ironically, Trump has shown restraint in his talk about foreign interventions (he doesn’t like them, though seems to be willing to make an exception for Syria), but none in the political arena.

Protestors seem to push all of Trump’s buttons: pettiness, paranoia, rage. Last week he ostensibly started to “pivot” to a more reasonable, general-election stance, but was unable to maintain for even a day. He regards the protestors as an embodiment of all that’s wrong with America and preventing it from being “great again.” He also sees them in highly personal terms: not merely disrespectful, but motivated by the nefarious forces that want to undermine him. So he’s willing to encourage violence against protestors. Trump is, of course, protected by the First Amendment, and he's careful enough to stop short of open incitement (which may not be protected). But the sentiment is unmistakable: channel your frustrations into beating people up, it will feel good and help bring about a better world. We haven’t seen the like of this since George Wallace.

It’s one thing to mock Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. It’s another to egg already-angry people on to violence. Yet Trump does not – cannot – make that distinction. It’s terrifying.